Let’s Talk Sports Games

This week’s Let’s Talk I’ll be discussing sports games.  I used to be a sports games gamer, I know that’s not proper English but whatever.  When I was younger over half of my video game collection consisted of sports games.  Whether it was Madden, FIFA, NBA, NCAA Football, or even NASCAR I loved sports games.  Read more after the jump and as always be sure to sign up and comment.

I absolutely love spring time here in Arizona.  The weather is nice for a change, and more importantly spring training baseball is here.  With spring training baseball comes the annual MLB:The Show and MLB 2k series.  As I stated before I used to buy sports games on a yearly basis.  This console generation however I’ve been buying sports games every other year or not at all.   It’s been a real pain seeing literally the same game every single year.

The case could be made that there’s only so much you can do with a sports sim.  The gameplay in MLB’s case has been the same for over a hundred years.  I understand that but it’s not the gameplay that turns me off of sports games this generation.  It’s the presentation.  MLB: The Show does a fine job with it’s presentation.  The graphics are great, there a plenty of player animations, and the commentary flows well.

Madden on the other hand lacks in the presentation department.  I really like the pregame presentation it’s somewhat realistic,but what takes me out of the game is the commentary commentary.  The stitching in the game is atrocious at times.  By stitching I mean the commentary in the game becomes staggered it really takes me out of the experience.  Hearing Gus Johnson have different tones with different lines really gets on my nerves at times.  It’s really noticeable that EA Tiburon just doesn’t spend enough time in the booth with it’s commentary.  It really seems to me atleast that the exclusive license by the NFL to the Madden franchise has really hurt the creativity and progress of that franchise.

The progress thing isn’t limited to the Madden franchise.  It really seems that these publishers and developers don’t add enough to the game for me to buy it every year.  There just isn’t enough improvement to justify spending $60 unless your a huge fan of the series.  Even MLB: The Show which is perhaps the best sports simulation on the market adds only a few additions every year.  Yet every year people buy what’s essentially the same game.

I would absolutely love a “My Player” type of mode in Madden, but it seems that the upgrades in the game every year tend to be with the AI or having 3D grass.  I remember when Maddnen first launched on the Xbox 360 this generation.  There weren’t umpires, cheerleaders, proper intro presentation, or fully modeled fans.  A few years later they add it into the presentation call it a key addition.  Those things were in Madden 2005.  That is why I don’t play sports very often games.  The additions just don’t justify the price.

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